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The Passage of a Few People Through a Rather Brief Moment in Time #189: On the Approximation of Pi
03.6.13
One or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations,
their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the
encounters they find there.
It's a bike ride.
Started by user nathansnider and user theroyalacademy.
It meets every Wednesday at 8:30pm at California Donuts #21.
We ride at 9pm.
We'll endeavor to return before the last red line trains (around midnight).
On the fourth year of this bike ride, you might expect:
- more inconvenient passageways
- more full moon picnics
- perhaps more "cover" versions of other people's rides, performed with amateurish enthusiasm
- certainly more amateurish enthusiasm
- disorientation
- reorientation
- pool halls
- bowling alleys
- dance parties
- karaoke
- imaginary histories
- scavenging for fun and sustenance
- more geocaching
- more oblique strategies
- more Oulipian constraints
- traffic median tea parties
Furthermore:
- A medium pace (maybe not for beginners; certainly not a hustle)
- We're not in a rush; we don't need to run every light.
- Maybe some distance;maybe some hills
- Victory donuts!
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This week:
On the Approximation of Pi
Let us not be too concerned with significant digits here. While it's true that next Wednesday is much closer to Pi
Day than this one, there is a certain perspective that can be achieved by approaching one's target from a
distance. The numbers may be a bit off, but the view is better.
Besides, now that the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter has been calculated to well over a trillion
decimal places, what need do we have for further precision? It's little more than a parlor trick - something for
supercomputers to impress their supercomputer friends.
So rather than documenting the number in ever finer detail, we will instead be focusing on its fundamental
properties - its irrationality and its transcendence, yes, of course, but also its deliciousness. Because pi is
nothing if not delicious! Our approach will be appropriately circumspect, but we can assure you that we will be
getting very close to pi indeed.
This week, expect a short route, a couple of hills, a couple of short off road sections, and a stop for eating. A
lock, while not strictly required, might bring you some peace of mind.
Talk, talk, talk...
Check out our new web site!
(and join the mailing list!)
The hacienda must be built.
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